[Oisín]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

Moreover, it is the superior form. Dropping the ‘s’ is slang. Prevalent amongst Americans, no doubt, yet widely considered uneducated and boorish amongst speakers of proper English.

Oversimplifying spelling dulls the mind.

It’s not slang. The two forms have coexisted for centuries and are both perfectly acceptible. The main difference is that in most words ending in ‘-ward(s)’, adjectives tend to use the form without the s (“An upward glance”), while adverbs tend to use the form with the s (“He glanced upwards”), the genitive being one way of creating adverbs from adjectives. ‘Toward(s)’, being mostly a preposition, fits neither of these, and has always been used both in the nominative and genitive without any distinction.

Originally Posted by subego

What always gets me is `this'.

`That' is just a crime against humanity.

Originally Posted by wataru

My pet peeve is incorrect use of company or organization names as plural nouns.

Also not incorrect. With companies, organisations, large bodies, etc.—basically nearly all things that can be logically considered as either a homogenous whole or as the amount of individuals that make up this whole—either the singular or the plural may be used.

Occasionally, it makes a notable nuance in meaning whether one uses the singular or the plural (e.g., “The current government is the worst we’ve ever had” vs. “The current government are all idiots”); other times, the difference will be negligible or nonexistent (e.g., “The police has lost control of the situation” vs. “The police have lost control of the situation”).

[subego]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

`That' is just a crime against humanity.

I've always hoped it was some weird text encoding problem.

Originally Posted by Oisín 

other times, the difference will be negligible or nonexistent (e.g., “The police has lost control of the situation” vs. “The police have lost control of the situation”).

Not that I'm doubting you in the slightest, but to my ears (well, eyes transposed to ears in my head) the difference is that the first sounds way wrong, as in I would assume someone who said that was uneducated.

[MindFad]

That'll be the day!

Learning the difference between then and than would be nice, too.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

Companies typically are comprised of various individuals. Referring to a company in the plural respects this. In a way, it’s shorthand for ‘those guys calling themselves Apple.’

Thus, Apple make computers.

If you said, Apple makes computers, that would imply there’s some giant robot called Apple making them all by himself.

If you want to get that literal, though, it's not just the employees of Apple. The parts are not manufactured by Apple. In fact, are the factories where the computers are assembled corporate-owned?

It just sounds incredibly pretentious to me to say "Apple have" instead of "Apple has". And, interestingly enough, the only place I've personally seen it regularly used that way is on this forum.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Here's a nice pic of Naomie not caring.

Does she always bring you your morning cuppa like that? She seems scandalously over-dressed for morning tea. You need to do a better job of keeping your house-staff in line, Doofy.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It's not "Mac Mini's", "Microsoft Ad's", or "iMac's". For people who nitpick about writing "Mac" in all caps (incorrectly, of course), you should be able to get this right.

BTW, it's not "Mac Minis" either. [/nitpick]

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Eug 

BTW, it's not "Mac Minis" either. [/nitpick]

So what's the plural of Mac Mini ?

Mac Minii ?

-t

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Eug 

BTW, it's not "Mac Minis" either. [/nitpick]

If "Mini" were in the context of an adjective (e.g. mini Macs), then it would be incorrect. However, since "Mac Mini" is the brand name of the product, I'm not seeing how "Mac Minis" is incorrect.

[CharlesS]

It's incorrect because of the capitalization.

If you look at Apple's site, the machine is called "Mac mini", not "Mac Mini".

[turtle777]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the next level of anal retentiveness.



-t

[shifuimam]

That's...weird.

All their other products are capitalized with title case. I wonder why they went this route with the mini.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the next level of anal retentiveness.

Hey, a question was asked. I answered it.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

That's...weird.

All their other products are capitalized with title case. I wonder why they went this route with the mini.

Not really - when the second word is a descriptor, they tend to make it lowercase, especially with the iPod line. iPod mini, iPod nano, iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod shuffle, Mac mini.

Mac Pro (and MacBook Pro, by extension) is really the odd one out in this regard.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Hey, a question was asked. I answered it.

Hey, an opportunity presented itself. I posted

-t

[Eug]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

That's...weird.

All their other products are capitalized with title case. I wonder why they went this route with the mini.

And of course:

[shifuimam]

I guess the iPod line is like that...

But the Mac line isn't. iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook...so why Mac mini? It doesn't seem consistent.

[Railroader]

Do you ever admit your wrong?

[RAILhead]

I still want to know why the frak so many people here use ` in place of a '

THAT REALLY PISSES ME OFF, and NO ONE has ever been able to explain why the crap they go all the way to the left side of the keyboard to enter the fricking thing.

WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?!?!?

[RAILhead]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I guess the iPod line is like that...

But the Mac line isn't. iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook...so why Mac mini? It doesn't seem consistent.

Because it's mini, silly!

[zro]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Do you ever admit your wrong?

Um, thats wrong's.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

I still want to know why the frak so many people here use ` in place of a '

THAT REALLY PISSES ME OFF, and NO ONE has ever been able to explain why the crap they go all the way to the left side of the keyboard to enter the fricking thing.

WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?!?!?

Dude, stop provoking them, it could get much worse.

I`m seriou`s.

-t

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Occasionally, it makes a notable nuance in meaning whether one uses the singular or the plural (e.g., “The current government is the worst we’ve ever had” vs. “The current government are all idiots”); other times, the difference will be negligible or nonexistent (e.g., “The police has lost control of the situation” vs. “The police have lost control of the situation”).

I may be wrong, but I believe that those distinctions are almost entirely British vs. American ones. I'm hard-pressed to imagine an American saying "the government have" or "the police has." In America, the government is always singular and the police are always plural.

The same goes for companies. In America, Apple makes wonderful products. In Britain, Apple make wonderful products.

[red rocket]

Originally Posted by KeyLimePi 

You mean those people who refuse to grudgingly acknowledge* that English is an evolving language? If it were left to them we we would still spell the word 'music' as 'musick.'

A language can both evolve and devolve. Not every development has to be viewed as a positive one. The way I see it, the English language is in decline, and this has been largely driven by the predominance of American English in popular culture. For instance, even the BBC have started using the spelling of ‘jail’ rather than ‘gaol’, which I find somewhat sad. Decades ago, people were worried that English children would start saying ‘zee’ in lieu of ‘zed’ because of Sesame Street. Luckily that hasn’t happened, but standards have suffered in other areas. Where will this all lead? News readers expressing themselves in lolcat speech?

Most people on the planet who speak and write English do not use American English pronunciation and spelling, but speak variants of British English whilst writing according to British rules of spelling.

Frankly, it is ridiculous to present what is no more than a codified dialect as an evolutionary step. Nothing wrong with having different dialects, but once the speakers of one dialect start thinking that the older, more established, more versatile spellings and pronunciations are somehow wrong, I think there’s a problem.

If you care for an analogy, how about this? Imagine that, what, three hundred years in the future, the U.S. of A. has colonised half the moon, whilst the Chinese have colonised the other half. After a while, the one group of colonists’ form of AmE has evolved/devolved into an American English - Mandarin hybrid, and the crazy buggers even write some wacky dictionary for it that disregards all that has gone before in the world of English AND American spellings and syntaxes. Now, that old crap-hole Earth still speaks in a variety of Englishes and other lingos, but all of a sudden, the Loonies decide that theirs is the more evolved, superior language and start to impose it on the Earthlings against their will via their crappy MoonTV and MoonWeb programming. Upsetting, isn’t it? What’s next, invasion?

[red rocket]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

It’s not slang. The two forms have coexisted for centuries and are both perfectly acceptible.

Acceptable in what context? If I say ‘towards’, the Yanks think I’m doing something wrong. In the American view, ‘toward’ is the correct form, and ‘towards’ is some weird Britishism. Half of them probably wouldn’t even recognise the word due to the way I pronounce it (‘tords’).

Effectively, for Yanks it is ‘toward’, and ‘toward’ only. In England, it is predominantly ‘towards’, although the other form is seen, as well. If you grow up saying ‘tords’, you are not going to say ‘tord’ all of a sudden, and you certainly aren’t going to say ‘to-ward’ unless you wish to make some specific point.

When written, exclusive of ‘toward’ is a clear indicator that the author uses American English. Exclusive use of ‘towards’ is a clear indicator that the author uses British English. Mixing the two is stylistically suspect, in my opinion.

[red rocket]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

If you want to get that literal, though, it's not just the employees of Apple. The parts are not manufactured by Apple. In fact, are the factories where the computers are assembled corporate-owned?

It just sounds incredibly pretentious to me to say "Apple have" instead of "Apple has". And, interestingly enough, the only place I've personally seen it regularly used that way is on this forum.

‘Pretentious’ to you, ‘human face’ to me. Incidentally, I am somewhat inclined to think of Microsoft as ‘it’ rather than ‘they’. I think it’s because I view M$ as the villain or enemy. In war, if I refer to ‘the enemy’ in the plural, I am allowing for the fact that there are human beings on the other side. If I refer to ‘The Enemy’ as a singular entity, all the potential for human compassion is stripped away somehow. Seems crazy to me; if there are human beings involved, referring to ‘them’ seems more natural than calling them ‘it’.

[zro]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

If you care for an analogy, how about this? Imagine that, what, three hundred years in the future, the U.S. of A. has colonised half the moon, whilst the Chinese have colonised the other half. After a while, the one group of colonists’ form of AmE has evolved/devolved into an American English - Mandarin hybrid, and the crazy buggers even write some wacky dictionary for it that disregards all that has gone before in the world of English AND American spellings and syntaxes. Now, that old crap-hole Earth still speaks in a variety of Englishes and other lingos, but all of a sudden, the Loonies decide that theirs is the more evolved, superior language and start to impose it on the Earthlings against their will via their crappy MoonTV and MoonWeb programming. Upsetting, isn’t it? What’s next, invasion?

I doubt I'd bitch about it on a Moonternet message board, though.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by red rocket

fectively, for Yanks it is ‘toward’, and ‘toward’ only. In England, it is predominantly ‘towards’, although the other form is seen, as well.

That was sort of my point exactly: neither is slang, they’re just two different forms of a word that happen to have ‘settled’ differently, one becoming the standard in one sphere, the other becoming standard in another sphere.

Originally Posted by red rocket

A language can both evolve and devolve. Not every development has to be viewed as a positive one. The way I see it, the English language is in decline, and this has been largely driven by the predominance of American English in popular culture. For instance, even the BBC have started using the spelling of ‘jail’ rather than ‘gaol’, which I find somewhat sad.

Despite the fact that ‘jail’ is actually an older, British form than ‘gaol’? If anything, ‘gaol’ is the sign of decline here, since using ‘gaol’ to describe the word pronounced as [dʒɛɪ:l] shows a confusion of the two original words. ‘Gaol’ was originally limited to the variant of this word that was pronounced [gɛɪ:ɔl]. I’m sure there were purists back in the day who huffed and puffed a lot over the ‘youth nowadays’ writing ‘gaol’ when they said ‘jail’.

If your definition of the ‘devolution’ of a language is that the language is being heavily influenced by a language or dialect that is not indigenous to the place of origin of that language, then I’m afraid English has been devolving for a good millennium already.

[wataru]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

Companies typically are comprised of various individuals. Referring to a company in the plural respects this. In a way, it’s shorthand for ‘those guys calling themselves Apple.’

Thus, Apple make computers.

If you said, Apple makes computers, that would imply there’s some giant robot called Apple making them all by himself.

It doesn't matter that companies are collections of individuals. A company is singular. Period. Your robot analogy is ridiculous. No reasonable person could possibly misunderstand it in that way. They would understand that there is a singular company named Apple that makes computers, which is correct, because it's the truth. Look at actual publications. I have never seen, for instance, an American newspaper use a company name as a plural noun. Maybe the British use it; it's still wrong.

Originally Posted by Oisín

Also not incorrect. With companies, organisations, large bodies, etc.—basically nearly all things that can be logically considered as either a homogenous whole or as the amount of individuals that make up this whole—either the singular or the plural may be used.

Occasionally, it makes a notable nuance in meaning whether one uses the singular or the plural (e.g., “The current government is the worst we’ve ever had” vs. “The current government are all idiots”); other times, the difference will be negligible or nonexistent (e.g., “The police has lost control of the situation” vs. “The police have lost control of the situation”).

I don't buy it. I think that there are "habitually plural" nouns like "the police" that are exceptions to the rule (proper nouns such as company names are not in this group). Your "The current government are all idiots" example sounds just plain ungrammatical to me (as does "The police has lost control").

[Big Mac]

That's interesting. I have never heard the construction, "Apple make computers" before. Highly awkward. Would red rocket also say, "Microsoft make Windows"? Corporations are treated as individual units in America, as wataru points out.

But on that topic, I have on occasion referred to Apple as they, when referring to Apple corporate policies. As in, "they may remove Firewire from the consumer lines whether we like it or not." Sometimes using "it" doesn't sound as good as they, although "it" would be the preferred pronoun.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

But on that topic, I have on occasion referred to Apple as they, when referring to Apple corporate policies. As in, "they may remove Firewire from the consumer lines whether we like it or not." Sometimes using "it" doesn't sound as good as they, although "it" would be the preferred pronoun.

It's also a subtle distinction about your subject.

When you say "Apple makes computers" you're usually talking about the Apple brand. But when you says "They may decide to remove..." you're talking about employees making company decisions.

That's how I see it anyway.

greg

[Big Mac]

Agreed.

[stevesnj]

If i post on any forum I can care less if my grammar is not perfect. I will post, post often and if my grammar is not correct..so what? You guys are seriously in need of therapy if your worried about grammar in a public forum. Try correcting someone on the street about their bad grammar and I can guarantee you will be punched in the face. You are just a bunch of forum tough guys.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by stevesnj 

If i post on any forum I can care less if my grammar is not perfect. I will post, post often and if my grammar is not correct..so what? You guys are seriously in need of therapy if your worried about grammar in a public forum. Try correcting someone on the street about their bad grammar and I can guarantee you will be punched in the face. You are just a bunch of forum tough guys.

Ahaha one of the most misused phrases in the English language... "I could care less".

Yes, yes you could.

Similar to using "of "instead of "have" (e.g. "I should of kept my mouth shut"), people rarely actually think about the meaning of the words they use.

"I could care less" implies that you care more than you could or should. "I couldn't care less" implies that you care as little as possible (e.g. not at all).

I've heard the argument from people before that they can write well, but choose not to in forums, IRC, and IM. If you actually retain good grammatical and spelling skills, it comes naturally, and therefore you don't make errors anywhere - including casual written communication.

[turtle777]

Geesh, shifu, most people here intentionally use "I could care less" just to mess with the "I could care less" Nazis.

-t

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Geesh, shifu, most people here intentionally use "I could care less" just to mess with the "I could care less" Nazis.

-t

That's also a poor argument.

I have an OKCupid profile, and they have that in-browser IM thing like Google has in Gmail. When people IM me, and their first message has grammatical errors, I correct them. They almost inevitably respond with "I did that on purpose to annoy you".

No, no you didn't. You did it because you're an idiot and wouldn't know proper grammar if it whacked you in the head with a two-by-four. As I said before, if you comprehend good grammar, it comes naturally. I have to actually work at using poor spelling and grammar when I write (if the situation calls for it). People don't use shitty grammar to annoy grammar Nazis. People use shitty grammar because they are developing their language skills on the Internet, where one bad phrase propagates like the bubonic plague until everyone is using it, erroneously thinking they're correct.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

That's also a poor argument.

No, it's a fact. 90% of the people at 'NN use it, mocking those few that ever used it wrong.

You should know that, you'v ebeen around a while.

On the other hand: who care`s.

-t

[l'ignorante]

For foreigners even more complicated, since we have adapted so many english words. For instance "baby" is also a dutch word, and in plural it's baby's, not your babies.

[RAILhead]

My babies?

[turtle777]

I think he meant your *rabies*.

-t

[mattyb]

This thread reminds me of a news story that I saw a few years ago about ebonics. What ever became of it?

[Laminar]

Still spoken.

[RAILhead]

It be in use stills.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by wataru 

It doesn't matter that companies are collections of individuals. A company is singular. Period. Your robot analogy is ridiculous. No reasonable person could possibly misunderstand it in that way. They would understand that there is a singular company named Apple that makes computers, which is correct, because it's the truth. Look at actual publications. I have never seen, for instance, an American newspaper use a company name as a plural noun. Maybe the British use it; it's still wrong.

It's singular if you're referring to the company as a whole - it's plural if you are referring to its members as a group.

Microsoft is a really huge tech company.

Microsoft are a bunch of soulless drones.

You get the idea.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by l'ignorante 

For foreigners even more complicated, since we have adapted so many english words. For instance "baby" is also a dutch word, and in plural it's baby's, not your babies.

Ah, is *that* where it comes from!?

Okay, that would certainly explain why this developed and why it's in such widespread use.

[molala]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

It's singular if you're referring to the company as a whole - it's plural if you are referring to its members as a group.

Microsoft is a really huge tech company.

Microsoft are a bunch of soulless drones.

You get the idea.

Yes, I remember this from 4th grade English class. Collective nouns. You can use them as singular or plural. Another example -

My family is close-knit.
My family are fighting over grammar.

[molala]

Hehe. I thought someone was going to say we should call them Macs mini. Kinda like culs-de-sac and mothers-in-law.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by molala 

Yes, I remember this from 4th grade English class. Collective nouns. You can use them as singular or plural. Another example -

My family is close-knit.
My family are fighting over grammar.

Actually, that's a much better example than mine, because it illustrates the problem much better. "My family are fighting over grammar" is a sentence that will only work with are, not with is. If you said "My family is fighting over grammar," this would imply that the family was all fighting as one collective whole, presumably against another group of some kind. So here we have some kind of situation where the Montagues are flying the banner of "is" and the Capulets are fighting for "are" and a massive bloodbath ensues. If the members of one family are fighting amongst themselves instead of as a unified whole, then we need to use are instead of is.

[AKcrab]

What is this thing for? -> `

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by AKcrab 

What is this thing for? -> `

The back tick (`) has several uses in Unix, I use it all the time there. It can also be used to make rotating ASCII progress bars/pinwheels, and also ASCII art.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

The back tick (`) has several uses in Unix, I use it all the time there. It can also be used to make rotating ASCII progress bars/pinwheels, and also ASCII art.

And of course, it’s also the standalone form of the grave accent.

Originally Posted by shifuimam

That's also a poor argument.

Sorry, but in this case, I’m with the Turtle. You might not remember this (or possibly it was before your time), but somewhere here, there’s a six-page (or something similar) thread about this very phrase. No agreement was reached. On the one hand, it doesn’t add up, logically—it doesn’t make sense. On the other, it’s a simple, set phrase, and as such doesn’t have to logically make sense in order to have a certain meaning, even if that meaning is exactly opposite to the analytic meaning of the individual words.

Since that thread, you can be almost certain that anyone on this forum (at least if it’s a long-standing member) who writes “could care less” is doing it intentionally, as a reference to that thread.

Originally Posted by shifuimam

I've heard the argument from people before that they can write well, but choose not to in forums, IRC, and IM. If you actually retain good grammatical and spelling skills, it comes naturally, and therefore you don't make errors anywhere - including casual written communication.

I agree completely with this. If spelling and good grammar is something you have to actually work to obtain when writing, then no, you’re not a good writer, grammatically speaking (I’m not talking about content here, of course). If you are, both will come as a matter of course, and you’ll immediately sense it when you don’t follow them (typos excepted, of course).

It’s sort of analogous to saying that you do know how to pronounce things right when you speak, but you’re lazy, so you only pronounce half the consonants and ignore the rest—people will know what you mean anyway(*). It’s a BS argument, ’cause if you actually know how to pronounce things properly, not doing so will only require more effort than doing so.

(*) To all the wisecrackers out there (*cough* Timo *cough*): no, that’s not how the Danish language works!

Originally Posted by l'ignorante

For foreigners even more complicated, since we have adapted so many english words. For instance "baby" is also a dutch word, and in plural it's baby's, not your babies.

And similarly (or perhaps rather conversely), in Danish, the plural of baby is babyer, but the genitive singular (“baby’s”) is babys.

[Railroader]

For all intensive purpoises your all wrong.